A blog about things -- not necessarily beautiful -- that at least jolted me out of my tram-lined train of thought. They may be funny, poignant, disgusting or beautiful, but they will be personal. You, dear reader, may not give a damn about an image of a crisp packet at the edge of a river but I might think it so delightful that I cry with gratitude. And a few poems. A a book plug or two.

Friday, 6 May 2016

short story (250 words)

Inside, Out

Caterpillar tracks wind
between the graves, leaving long ridges of churned mud in the winter
grass. It's twenty years since Tom dug a grave and he can't help
wishing he'd had one of those then.

He dug a crumpled pack
of cigarettes from the breast pocket of his denim jacket. He'd been
told off for wearing it in his youth. 'Disrespectful,' his boss had
said. How much more disrespectful was a mechanical digger tearing
through the cemetery? Jim Chantry, the driver, had been well trained
but he'd still knocked over a headstone or two and the fiasco with
the unmarked graves still cropped up in the local papers from time to
time. You wouldn't have had that trouble with a real gravedigger, not
when they remembered the burial plots with or without a marker stone.
Not that anyone read papers anymore.

“Got one of those for
me?” Jim wore his customary green council overalls.

“Sure.” Tom passed
him the pack and lit his own with a cheap disposable razor. “You
ready for this?”

“If I'm not now I
never will be.” Jim borrowed the lighter and ducked away from the
wind. “Where's the grave, then?”

“Over here.” Tom
led the way to his wife's grave. Everyone had witnessed the burial
but not a soul had thought to check the coffin. “Two point four
million in gold bullion.”

“And your wife?”

“Nah.” Ted pointed
to an equally old grave. “She's shacked up with Charlie Hendricks.”